Oh, all the words I should not know
those doctors wrote on me.
Swell up and from their syllable
won't let me get to sleep.
The sun will start later
Clock out early
and I'll drive around
and wait for it.
Follow familiar roads
Emptied of every memory
under a sheet of silence
and unmarked snow.

Then idle in some parking lot.
smoke half a smoke and ask
St. Boniface and St. Fratel
preserve me from my past
Repair our potholes
Prevent plant closures
and if they remember me at all
make them remember me
as more than a queer experiment
more than a diagram in their quarterly
make them remember me